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It's
been more than a quarter-century since Northwest Airlines Flight 255
crashed in the Detroit suburb of Romulus.

The plane was just clearing
the runway at 8:46pm on Aug. 16, 1987, when it tilted slightly. The left
wing clipped a light pole, and the damaged airliner sheared the top off
a rental car building.

The
MD-80 left a half-mile trail of bodies, charred wreckage, magazines and
trays of food along Middle Belt Road when it crashed.

Destruction: A member of the investigations team working on the crash of Northwest Airlines flight 255 looks inside the cockpit two days after the tragedy

THE TRAGEDY OF FLIGHT 255

Northwest Airlines Flight 255 exploded shortly after taking off at 8.46pm on August 16, 1987.

The
flight, carrying 154 people, left Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County
Airport in Romulus, Michigan bound for Sky Harbor International Airport
in Phoenix, Arizona.

As
soon as the plane lifted from the runway, it began to roll from
side-to-side and struck a lighting pole. This severed part of the left
wing and set jet fuel stored in the wing on fire.

The aircraft then tipped violently to the right, causing the wing to tear through the roof of a car rental building.

Completely
out of control, it crashed into cars on to a nearby highway and broke
apart before bursting into flames when it hit an overpass.

The
National Transportation Safety Board determined the crash was likely
caused by crew’s failure to check the slats and flats on the wings.
These work to control speed and angle of take-off.

A
lack of electrical power was also cited that failed to trigger the
warning system that the plane was not properly configured for take-off.
Causes for an electrical failure were never found.

The
National Transportation Safety Board concluded the plane's crew failed
to set the wing flaps properly for takeoff. The agency also said a
cockpit warning system did not alert the crew to the problem.

It was believed that Cecelia survived the crash because her mother shielded her with her own body.

Her mother, Paula, father Michael and brother, David, six were among those killed as the family returned from their vacation. They lived in Tempe, Ariz., at the time.

The four-year-old suffered serious injuries including a
fractured skull, broken leg and collarbone and third-degree burns. She
underwent four skin grafts for the burns on her arms and legs.

There was intense global interest in
the little girl, which saw her feature on magazine covers and receive
piles of gifts from strangers.

More
than 2,000 presents and 30,000 cards were sent to the University of
Michigan Medical Center but her guardians asked that they be distributed
to local children's hospitals. The family also set up a trust fund
after she received more than $150,000 in donations.

Her
uncle Franklin Lumpkin and her aunt Rita, her mother's sister, kept her
sheltered from the attention once she left hospital after seven weeks
of treatment, allowing her to grow up in obscurity in Birmingham,
Alabama.

Crocker said the enormity of what had happened didn't really hit her for a while.

'When I realized I was the only
person to survive that plane crash, I was maybe in middle school, high
school, maybe, being an adolescent and confused,' said Crocker, who was
interviewed by the film's director, Ky Dickens, over 1.5 hours in
Queens, N.Y., in September 2011.

As for returning to the air, Crocker 'feels fine flying and does so quite often,' Dickens said.

'Flying
doesn't scare me. I have this mentality where if something bad happened
to me once on a plane, it's not going to happen again,' Crocker says in
the film. 'The odds are just astronomical.'

Disaster: The plane, bound for Phoenix, Arizona, crashed shortly after take-off at 8.46pm near Detroit killing everyone but one child on board

Devastating loss: Cecelia was just four when her father Michael, mother Paula and six-year-old brother David were killed in the air disaster

Cecelia said that she had finally
decided to open up about the crash because the film was a group project
'and that’s why I’m willing to get involved and be part of something
bigger'.

The man who pulled her from wreckage more than 20 years ago, firefighter John Thiede, recalls hearing her distant cry in the wreckage.

'I heard that faint cry a baby doll
makes,' he said. 'I looked to my right and I could see an arm, kind of
bent, coming out of a chair.'

It
was initially believed that the four-year-old was one of those injured
on the ground until her grandfather came forward to identify the little
girl by her chipped front tooth.

Dr
Jai Prasad, the doctor who led the team which cared for the
four-year-old, said at the time: 'She understands she has lost her
father and her mother, and her brother.

'She understands that she was involved in an accident.

'But she doesn't have any memory of how it happened.'

Moving forward: The French schoolgirl Bahia Bakari, dubbed the 'miracle girl' survived the Yemenia Flight in 2009 that killed all the other 152 passengers on board

Miracle: Bahia Bakari, 12 in July 2009, miraculously survived the Yemenia airliner crash off the Comoros islands, being ejected from the plane into pitch-black Indian Ocean waters

Aftermath: Search parties scour the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros in search of the still missing Yemenia Airbus A310 in Moroni on July 6, 2009

Cecelia has kept in touch with the families of those who died in the 1987 crash - including her rescuer Lieutenant Thiede.

He met her for the first time on her wedding day when he watched her walk down the aisle to become Cecelia Crocker.

The firefighter spoke out as part of the documentary. 'To see her come down the aisle, my heart, I lost it really. Just to see her in person was something,' he said.

Sole Survivor is expected to have its
theatrical premiere and widespread release later this year.

The movie focuses on Crocker - known
as Cecelia Cichan at the time of the crash - as well as three other
'sole survivors' of plane crashes: George Lamson Jr., a then
17-year-old from Plymouth, Minn., who was aboard a Galaxy Airlines
flight that crashed in Reno, Nev., in 1985; Bahia Bakari, a 12-year-old
girl who lived through a Yemenia Airways flight that crashed near the
Comoros Islands in 2009; and Jim Polehinke, the co-pilot of a 2006
Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Ky.

Inspiring: The documentary, Sole Survivor by director Ky Dickens, is expected to have its theatrical premiere and widespread release later this year